1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording medium suitably used in ink-jet recording.
2. Related Background Art
Most of the ink-jet printers widely spread at present inevitably produce non-printed regions at the leading edge, left and right sides and trailing edge of a recording medium for ink-jet recording (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9crecording mediumxe2x80x9d simply) fed therein. These non-printed regions are regions required to stably convey the recording medium in a printer or to prevent the interior of the printer from being stained with an ink and unavoidably caused at present.
In addition, the widths of the non-printed regions at the leading edge and trailing edge of the recording medium cannot be made equal to each other, which depends on the type of a printer. If the-widths of both regions are made equal, extremely wide non-printed regions are left. For example, in the case where a non-printed region of a fixed width unavoidably occurs at a trailing edge of a recording medium, a wide non-printed region is left at a part of the recording medium. In a printer of a general structure, the width of the non-printed region unavoidably caused is about 10 to 20 mm. A printed region of a print deviates from the center of the recording medium due to the non-printed region, and thus the beautiful appearance, design and added value of the print are lowered. When a non-printed region caused at the leading edge is matched to a non-printed region caused at the trailing edge thereof, the printed region can be located at the center of the printing medium. However, unusual wide non-printed regions are formed at the leading and trailing edges of the medium, and so the beautiful appearance, design and added value of the print are lowered.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-166748 has proposed a recording medium by which non-printed regions can be freely preset by using a half-cut line to separate the recording medium into at least two pieces, and all non-printed region may be removed according to circumstances.
The recording medium disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 10-166748 can be easily separated into at least two pieces, but involves a problems that it is far from being satisfactory from the viewpoints of ease of separation and fineness of the separated portions.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a recording medium which can solve the above-described problems involved in the prior art and can achieve stable conveyability without causing a failure in conveying such as bending of a series of perforations which form a half-cut line to separate the recording medium into two or more pieces, or breaking of the perforations during conveyance of the recording medium in a printer.
The above object can be achieved by the present invention described below.
According to the present invention, there is thus provided a recording medium for ink-jet recording, which is provided with at least one half-cut line (2) (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9ccut linexe2x80x9d simply) formed in a machine direction (MD) and at least one half-cut line (3) perpendicular to the MD direction, wherein the half-cut lines are in the form of a series of perforations with a cut portion and an uncut portion alternately arranged continuously, and the length (xcex2) of the uncut portion in the half-cut line (2) is longer than the length (xcex2xe2x80x2) of the uncut portion in the half-cut line (b).